Self Inflicted Brusies
by Elementalist
Summary: Kenny McComick hasn't ever been lucky-lucky in love, lucky in life, the poor boy just doesn't have it. With complications at home, Kenny turns to more extreme methods. For money, for simulated happiness. There's no one left to help him. But he doesn't need help. He can take care of himself, like he has been doing for years and years.
1. Chapter 1

I used to think—and I mean really, really _think_—that my life couldn't get any fucking worse. I mean, come on, the fucking _dirt_ is richer than my folks are and it could probably hold a job down for longer, too. Dirt doesn't do shit but at least it can do it right. . .

I can't do a fucking thing, though.

My grades are below F's—the teachers probably only put those pretty D's on my report cards so that I can get my ass out of their classrooms next year. Makes the folks happy, though—think me some sort of genius 'cause I haven't flunked out like Kevin or got some bitch preggers yet—and they stick each new report on the fridge with the one plastic-letter L magnet we have, just to gloat how much I fucking suck. Which is fitting—L stands for Loser.

I've had every job this piss-hole of a town has to offer, from delivering pizzas on Stan's bike (which I had to fucking _borrow_ every day I worked) to being a janitor at the high school (now that was a blast, I swear those fucking bastards made half those messes on purpose, just to get back at me for somethin') to even doing a little corner work, if you catch my drift. You'd be surprised just how many fucked-up freaks pass through South Park.

Hell, I was surprised just how many of those same damn freaks _lived_ here.

And, because of my reputation as the town-whore, I can't get a girlfriend to save my pitiful life. Tried, trust me, to tell them the reason why, but bitches don't listen if you don't cough up diamonds after every syllable. I got sick of it real quick and haven't bothered with them since.

To sum it all up, and I'm one retarded, broke, lonely bastard who sucks dick every weekend just to get enough money to buy cigarettes to last me through the goddamn week.

'Course, you're probably thinking how that leaves room for the 'couldn't get any worse part', right?

Well, get this, 'cause it's the fucking cherry on my shit-sundae—I'm totally crushing on one of my best friends.

Who's a guy.

And who's totally in love with someone else.

* * *

"_FUCK IT!" Kyle threw the dice-cup down on the Yahtzee! board with a scowl, arms quickly folding up over his chest._

_We're eight and Yahtzee! is the fucking shit of all shits. Pwning your friends with dice and getting to strut around announcing it? Oh, hell yes. We're eating it up—even Cartman, who usually pitches goddamn fits whenever we do something that doesn't involve the words _'Halo' _or _'Grand Theft Auto'_._

_But that may be because he's totally cheating—and winning because of it._

_Kyle knows. 'S why he's so pissed. But Stan and I don't really care. We're just havin' fun for fun's sake and it's my goddamn roll and I don't care if Cartman rolled another six-straight Yahtzee. So I pick up the cup and the six dice Kyle abandoned, shake 'em up real good and let 'em roll._

_I have no fucking luck, so I get three ones, a two, and a five. I pluck the two and five up and roll again, this time getting another one and a six. The six goes back and I shake, shake, shake until it feels right to let it drop._

_It hits the board, the one facing up, but it's got too much momentum and flips over so I get a worthless three._

_Cartman snorts, ripping the cup from my hands, and scoops up my pitiful roll while I scribble it down on my score sheet. Well, four points up is better than no points up, right? I'm in last place. Stan's in second and Kyle's in third. Cartman, as I already said, is first, but not by much. One high roll and Stan could wipe his ass outta the game._

_Which is just what everyone is kinda hoping for. Especially Kyle, who can't keep from glaring at Cartman as he makes a show of shaking up that stupid dice cup. Then he lets them drop, suddenly, and they dance around the board: six, six, six, six, six._

_Kyle screams and gets up, storming from the room. Stan and I share this weird glance thing that I can totally, like, read and I scrambled up to follow him while Stan picks up Cartman's latest Yahtzee!_

_At first, I don't know where he's headed. The kitchen is dark, reeking of Pledge too, and I can't see a fucking thing. The only thing I hear is Stan telling Cartman that he was gonna win and Cartman's jeering protests._

_I'm about to give up when I notice the glass door is half-way open, like someone was in too much of a hurry to close it. I walk to it, hood drawn up, and slip out into the night._

_Kyle's sitting in the backyard, cross-legged, back against the only tree rooted there, seemingly looking up at the stars—or, fuck, the grain in the wooden floor of the tree house he and Stan had just built. As I get closer, I notice he's not just looking, he's fucking glaring at whatever he's staring at. Sulking. Pissed._

_I take another step and Kyle finally seems to realize he isn't alone. Some of the anger soothes away and he asks a quiet, "Stan?"_

_I try not to notice, but a burning ache stabs my chest. Like I was impaled by a white-hot iron again but didn't die this time._

'_Course he'd want Stan, they were, like, best friends or whatever. Still, it kinda hurts he'd just assume. And I don't say anything. Maybe he'd figure out it was me._

_He does— the fucking next intake of breath. He's not the smartest kid in our class just by title alone. He catches shit quick._

"_. . .Kenny?"_

_By this time, I'm standing in front of him, so I nod though he doesn't need to be reassured that he's right. Just how many orange-parka wearing kids could he know?_

_He doesn't say anything to me this time so I take it upon myself to sit down next to him. Kyle doesn't protest though he doesn't exactly look any happier either. Guess that's what I get for not being Stan._

_We sit there for a while, Kyle looking up at the sky and me looking over at him, and we don't say anything. We don't even say anything when he scoots closer to me, one skinny-stick of an arm held out to the stars._

"_. . .see that one," he asks and he should know better—all those stars look alike to me. Tiny, bright and pointless. But I nod for him as if I were staring straight at the one he's talking about. ". . .it's not really a star at all." I frown. It's not? "It's Jupiter."_

_Jupiter. . ._

_That's a planet, right?_

_He starts telling me about Jupiter—about the storms constantly happening on it, to its four moons, to its Roman-god inspired name. When he's done, he points to another star and tells me about it, talking, talking, talking, and cramming my head with shit I didn't think I'll ever need to know._

_But I listen and remember every word of it._

_And I learn something more than whatever he tells me, that night, beneath the stars I've never cared for—I'm totally head-over heels for him. I almost want to kiss him, but we're eight. . .and that'd just be wrong. . ._

_Still doesn't help the thought from crossing my mind more than once. . ._

_In fact, I tried. No shit. I tried to kiss Kyle Broflovski when we were fucking eight—didn't work out, though. . ._

_Just as I covered Kyle's hand with mine, lowering it so he'd focus on _me_, Stan came outside, smiling broadly in the dim light of the crescent moon._

"_Kicked his ass," he states, striding closer. Kyle moves from me the moment he took that first step and lurches up, going to him with a congratulation and a "fuck yeah!"_

_That was something else I learned that night: Kyle had the total hots for Stan Marsh._

_Go. Fucking. Figure.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

It gets lonely sometimes. Being me. You'd think otherwise, being a whore and all, but I am. I'm lonely.

I guess that's why I started taking care of stray cats. Well, okay, _just one_ stray. I couldn't afford anymore than that—fuck, I couldn't afford _the one I had._

Named 'er Pussy. Cute, right? I thought so—Stan laughed at it, so did Cartman, but Kyle just seemed irritated by it. Still, though, annoyed or not, I caught him scratching her behind the ears, making soft cooing noises to calm her down.

That's something most people don't know about Kyle: He's always wanted a pet. He never told us that, of course, I just found it out by watching him.

Once, we visited a pound for a school trip. I was pretty excited about it—hell, we were getting out of class—but Cartman skipped it, saying he didn't have time for wimpy-assed animals or whatever. Stan wanted to go the most, said he might even adopted a new dog (kid had a soft spot for animals that no one else could understand). Kyle, like always, just seemed annoyed that we weren't going to do anything 'enlightening', meaning no tests, grades, studying and all that school shit. But he went. In part 'cause the teachers told him too and, probably the true reason, because Stan was so psyched about it.

So there we were, us three, walking down the line of cages, looking at the abandoned animals quivering, barking, pissing behind the bars. It made me feel sad, seeing all those dogs and cats without someone to love them—it, really, when you boiled it down to the quick, reminded me of. . ._myself_.

_I_ am unloved, unwanted, unneeded. . .South Park is pretty much as shittiest of a cage as anyone could be shoved in. . .

It struck home.

I remember how pissed and upset I was 'cause I didn't have enough to even cover the donation fee to adopt one of them. Apparently, I couldn't conceal that too well. Kyle, who'd been quiet the entire trip (opposed to Stan, who bitched the entire time), reached into his pocket and pulled out a five.

"Here."

If there's something I hate more than being poor, it's when people start dishing out the charity money.

I declined it and scowled into the cage, at the cats nestled back in the far corner, away from the passerby, away from the glance at freedom. They looked miserable. I almost regretted my decision to not take Kyle's money.

"They kill them, you know."

I turned my blue-eyed scowl to Kyle, who was tucking the bill back into his pocket, ending the offer.

He took one eye-full of my expression. Then looked into the cage as I had. "The animals. If someone doesn't adopt them in a week, they kill them to make room."

Well. If that didn't just make me feel damn peachy.

I folded my arms across my chest, frowning, and said nothing. What _could_ I say? 'Hey, Kyle, on second thought, can I have that five bucks so I can save one of these poor fucking things?'

Pfft. No.

I don't take charity money. Even if it's for a good cause.

Anyway, that's how I found out he liked animals and wanted his own pet. I know, you don't see it 'cause I left out a lot of the story, like how he almost adopted a puppy and took it home. I didn't tell you that he gave up the five dollars to Stan, like, twenty minutes after he was going to give it to me, in order to help him pay for his own new puppy. I didn't tell you that he let Kyle name it something like Bombay or some stupid third-world country name-I can't fucking remember shit like that.

So, whatever. Just know that Kyle, secretly, really, really wanted to bring home something that he could name and keep and love himself.

* * *

Things die.

Plants die. Animals die. People die.

Hopes die.

Dreams die.

Wishes, too.

Sometimes, they die more than once. Like me.

I die all the time.

It hasn't happened in a while, though. Which is pretty fucking spectacular.

Go figure it won't happen when I really want it too.

* * *

I had a bad week at school. Even stealing a few of Pop's beers couldn't make it any better. Weed might. But I ain't got the money for it. Or, trust me, I'd be fucking baked right now.

I don't like sharing stories. Not really. But I know you're probably really fucking curious right now, right? Guess I could tell you. Since, you know, you've stuck along so far.

Okay. So. Math class.

Boring as watching a dog shit but as excruciating as hammering nails into your fingertips. I-and get this goddamn straight-have no talent for numbers and really don't give a shit if I can't add, subtract or long divide. But my teacher is yaking about something ten-times (ha!) worse than long division-isoso-whatever triangles-and it's blowing right past me.

Not that I'm paying attention.

I'm too busy staring at the sweet curve of Kyle's ass. His jeans were too tight that day and I'm taking each moment for granted. Gotta burn it into my memory. It's not often Kyle slips up and wears his size-too-small pants to school.

Not so bad, right? Where's the goddamn drama? It's coming, give it a fucking second.

See, Kyle catches me looking. He twists in his desk and stares at me, his green eyes glinting with bottled-up anger. "The _fuck_ are you doing," he snaps in a hush, not wanting dear 'ole Miss Math Teacher to overhear.

"Wondering how the hell you noticed," I mutter, voice already muffled 'cause of my drawn up hood. Kyle's had practice, though, plenty of it, and he hears every word. Never have I seen him blush like that. Least, not when Stan's attention wasn't directed at him.

He doesn't say anything and just turns back around, ignoring me, like he would do the rest of the day. And tomorrow. And the days following that.

Trust me, I tried to apologize, but Kyle would just walk away.

Let's see. . .that happened on Monday . . . Stan came up to me a couple days later, Wednesday maybe, and asked me about it.

"Why's Kyle so pissed," he asks after managing to catch me at my locker. I was kneeling on the ground, trying to cram the books I never use back in there after they had spilled out. I only opened it 'cause I thought my pack of cigs was in there. No luck. But we already knew that.

I look up at him, saying nothing.

"Well?" Stan raises an eyebrow, studying me. I take a moment to respond.

I shake my head and shrug. "No idea, dude. . ."

I'm a fucking liar. I know why Kyle's pissed. So do you. So shut the fuck up about me bein' a bad friend for not telling him.

You're to blame, too.

Stan frowns and unhitches himself from the lockers he so casually leaned against. "Huh." He doesn't mean it as really anything but I take it as a dismissal. I stand up, slam my locker door shut, and walk down the hall with my hands shoved real deep in my pockets.

My fingers brush against the pack of cigarettes I stashed there earlier.


End file.
